[ Craig Smith wrote:

> Hi,  Let me make a suggestion about tuning the calliope.  _Do not_
> just bash the tuning plug up and down.  Consider where the force will
> go.  If you hit the top of a frozen pipe (either up or down), it will
> tend to stress all the joints at the bottom of the pipe.

Nearly 20 years ago I rebuilt a Tangley CA-43 calliope.  The machine
had been submerged in two different floods and had really been through
Hell and back.  I had to have a sheet metal shop make all new panels.
The reservoir in the bottom, (technically not really a reservoir but
rather a baffle chamber to null out the pulsing of the Rootes blower),
was half filled with mud.

The stoppers in the whistles were completely frozen, quite literally
welded together from verdigris.  Forcefully pulling from the eyelet on
the stopper only caused breakage.  Soaking and heat didn't work well
either.  I ended up having to unsolder every single pipe from the
bottom in order to ram the stoppers out with a large dowel.  After
cleaning the corrosion out of the inside then I had to reassemble each
of them again.  That was a huge job!

Rob Goodale
Las Vegas, Nevada